Academic Research and Industrial Innovation: Interfirm Differences, Motivation for Successful Projects, and the Role of Consulting for Industry

在过去十年中，在研究不同行业的技术创新在多大程度上是基于研究、学术研究与工业应用之间的滞后、大学和学术研究人员倾向于对工业创新做出重大贡献的特征方面取得了实质性进展。但我们对这一复杂领域的认识仍存在许多空白。具体来说,太少的原因(1)了解新产品和过程的比例要高很多,因此基于最近的学术研究在一些公司在同一行业的其他公司(2)学术研究者在多大程度上被为他们的贡献产业的新产品和流程做了引用的研究自己的好奇心,通过一个已知的需求,由一个宣布竞争,一些这些因素的组合,(3)决定企业将支持哪些高校进行各种类型的研发的因素；(4)行业学术咨询的范围、性质和作用，这无疑是调动大学专业知识帮助企业传递信息和了解如何传递信息的主要途径。本研究项目的目的是为这些重要课题提供新的线索。基于该领域以前的工作，来自化学、信息处理、电子、仪器、制药、金属和石油工业公司的数据；还有大量的学术研究人员，他们被这些行业的公司引用，因为他们对产品和工艺创新做出了特别重大的贡献。基于这类详细的数据，进行了统计分析，其结果应该对试图提高美国学术研究的经济回报的决策者有用。

In the past decade, substantial progress has been made in investigating the extent to which technological innovations in various industries have been based on research the lags between, the academic research and their industrial use, and the characteristics of the universities and academic researchers that have tended to contribute significantly to industrial innovation. But many gaps still exist in our knowledge of this complex area. Specifically, far too little is known about (1) the reasons why the percentage of new products and processes based on recent academic research is so much higher in some firms than in others in the same industry (2) the extent to which academic researchers cited by industry for their contributions to industry's new products and processes were led to do the cited research by their own curiosity, by a known need, by an announced competition, by some combination of these factors, (3) the factors determining which colleges and universities firms will support to do R and D of various types, and (4) the extent, nature, and role of academic consulting for industry, which is unquestionably a major avenue by which university expertise is mobilized to help transfer information and know how to firms. The purpose of this research project is to shed new light on each of these important topics. Building on previous work in this area, data from firms in the chemical, information processing, electronics, instruments, pharmaceutical, metals, and petroleum industries; and from a large number of academic researchers who have been cited by firms in these industries as having made particularly significant contributions to their product and process innovations. Based on detailed data of this kind, statistical analyses are conducted, the findings of which should be useful to decision makers trying to increase the economic payoff from academic research in the United States.